┊┊┊┊ ➶ ❁۪ 。˚ ✧

┊┊┊┊ ➶ ❁۪ 。˚ ✧

⚠️ this story contains topics as eating disorders, body dysmorphia, low self esteem, negative thinking, perfectionism and obsession. please read at your own risk. ⚠️

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Jake Sim felt lost as he stood on the parking lot of the Speediez. He felt sick to his stomach. He didn't even know why he thought it was a good idea to bring up Lee Namsoo. He was just annoyed with how the woman was treating Jinah.

A sigh left Jakes lips. He felt like throwing up. The food wasn't as good and he definitely would have preferred to be with Jinah alone. Why did he think it was okay to invite them. He shook his head. He never learned from his mistakes.

He didn't feel like going home. He grabbed his phone and looked through his contacts. His best friend Park Sunghoon was probably busy with his new job. He had a USA tour to plan and prepare after all.

The only one who'd probably wouldn't mind hanging out with him was his friend Lee Heeseung. With a sigh he pressed his name on his screen and held his phone to his ears. The phone rang twice before the one year older male accepted the call.

"Hey Jake" Lee Heeseung, a twenty-year old college student, grinned into the phone. "What's up?", the Libra asked and waited for his friends response. "Hyung, would you mind going out with me? I feel like getting shit-faced drunk."

Silence washed over the phone and Heeseung hummed. "Did something happen? You usually don't go drinking during the week." Jake sighed. "I'd rather tell you in person. You cool with that?"

"Cool."

"Let's meet in half an hour by the pub by my house" Jake said and Heeseung hummed. "See you then." The older lad hung up and Jake started walking home. He definitely needed a distraction from todays events.

He liked Kwon Jinah.

He really wanted to be her friend. She seemed like a genuinely nice young woman. She was quite introverted and shy, but Jake didn't mind. When she spoke to him, she seemed open and often smiled brightly.

But Jake saw how fake her smile was when Lee Namsoo was around. It was making him sick to his stomach. At first he thought it was cool, to get to know Jinah's friends. He wanted to know whom the people were, that accompanied Jinah on her travel through her life.

But after watching the interactions between Jinah, Namsoo and Kim Hanwool Jake quickly realized that something was off. Hanwool seemed like a complete himbo. He was too smitten—too in love—to see how fake the cutesy attitude of his girlfriend was.

Lee Namsoo was as slick as a snake. She knew what to say, how to bat her eyes and how to pout to make people around them fulfill every single one of her wishes. She was clever for doing so.

And good ole Kwon Jinah was too good to see the monster inside her cute best friends demeanor.

Jake arrived at the pub. It was a small pub called Einstein's. The owner was a mid-thirty year old man who used to work in a pub in Ireland before going back to his home country South Korea.

When Jake freshly moved here, he often sat down in the pub to review his day and what he had achieved. This was the time he got to know the owner and the man decided to "adopt" Jake as his little brother.

Jake called the owner Hyung and often got free drinks, when the owner was in a good mood. Today Jake didn't feel like letting his Hyung pay. He wanted to drink so much, his insides turned out.

"Jake!"

Jake looked up. Lee Heeseung had arrived. The older male wore light denim pants a loose white t-shirt. His hair was a messy mop on top of his head—as usual. "Hey Hyung" Jake greeted the man and hugged him.

"Damn, what's with the long face?" Heeseung asked and threw his arm around Jake's shoulder. "I told you about plum fairy right?", asked Jake referring to Jinah. When he first started to think about Jinah as cute, he referred to her as the plum fairy.

So Sunghoon and Heeseung immediately knew whom her was talking about.

"Oh" Heeseung sang, "your crush!" He chuckled and Jake rolled his eyes. "She's not my crush" he said and shook his head. "She's the girl I want to be friends with" Jake smiled as he opened the door to the Einstein's and went to search for two seats by the bar.

The two boys sat down. The barkeeper nodded at them. "A bottle of Soju please" Jake ordered before looking at Heeseung. "Plum fairy and I planned to go and check out the Speediez after work since it recently opened" Jake shook his head, "I do not recommend this place. It tastes worse than McDonalds."

Rolling his eyes the Aussie started pouring Soju in Heeseung and his cup.

"Anyways, on the way out of work we bumped into plum fairy's friends and I thought it would be great to get to know them. I mean they belong to plum fairy's life so I should know them, right?" Heeseung downed his Soju as he listened to Jake telling the story of the dinner.

"And after these two horrible people left, I kinda snapped and asked plum fairy why the fuck she was friends with this woman and she got very defensive and ended up saying that she doesn't want to be friends with me." Jake shook his head. "I think she's mad at me."

"Jake" Heeseung filled his cup again. "You know that she's right. You were in no position to judge the people she's close with. From what you told me and Sunghoon, she doesn't seem like the person to judge your friends either."

"I messed up, right?"

Heeseung nodded. "If you want to fix this, you better do it fast. People don't usually recover fast from situations like this. "If you want to be her friend, you gotta apologize for being such a push over."

"Even if I was right?"

"Especially if you were right, Jake." Heeseung shook his head. "Heereum's often super mad at me and I know it's her pride. And even if I'm right, I apologize to Heereum. Just to ease the tension. One day or another she'll see what the mistake was."

Heereum was Heeseung's younger sister. She was nineteen and the leader and front woman of a rock band. Jake had already worked for GROWING UP IN SEOUL and had the chance to meet Lee Heereum for real.

"I think I'll go and talk to plum fairy tomorrow" Jake said, filling his shot glass once more. "I'll apologize and see if she accepts or not." Heeseung nodded. "That's a good idea. I know you'll find a way."

"Oh, and tell me when you accepted that you like-like her."

― 🐧♥️🦭 ―

But Kwon Jinah didn't come into work the following day.

Or the day after.

Actually, Jinah didn't come in to work for a whole week after the disaster with Jake Sim on the parking lot of the burger place they went to with Lee Namsoo and Kim Hanwool. That night, Jinah had tried to throw up once more. Just because she was annoyed that the food of this place was still in her system.

When she woke up in the morning she couldn't stand up from her bed. Her whole body was weak, not able to stand up. And just sitting up made her see stars. Later that day she got a fever.

Nabi and Marcus had looked at their daughter and Marcus called one of his employees and told them Jinah would take a week off. She wasn't feeling well.

It was Friday and Jinah was still in bed. Her body weak and her mind hazy. She was looking at the wall next to her bed and bit the inside of her cheek. She could feel the dents from all the times she had bitten it.

Jinah felt majorly sad. She was glad she was feeling so sick. It made her loose even more weight. But the overthinking and the racing mind was making her go crazy.

Knock, knock.

Jinah didn't even lift her head. She just hummed. Kwon Nabi opened the door. She had a tray in her hands. A steaming bowl of hot chicken noddle soup on it. "Hi baby" Nabi said, putting the tray on Jinah's nightstand.

"How are you feeling this morning?", she asked and sat down on the edge of Jinah's bed. "I made you some soup. You need to eat in order to rebuild your strength." Nabi looked at her daughter.

From the outside Jinah looked like someone suffering from a normal cold, or even the flu, but deep down Nabi knew what Jinah was going through. She didn't know why she never approached Jinah about it, but the signs were all pointing in one direction.

And Nabi didn't care if Marcus saw it or not. She knew Jinah was struggling with her appearance and with eating. And she didn't want her daughter to go down the same route as her.

When Nabi was Jinah's age she was a severely underweight model.

Everyone loved how beautiful Kwon Nabi was. Everyone wanted to look like her. They adored her skinny body and how her ribs poked out of her skin. And Nabi was enjoying the attitude. It made her feel so special she wanted to loose more weight.

And when Nabi looked at her now twenty-year-old daughter she felt the same. Jinah was behaving like she did when she was still suffering from her eating disorder. Jinah subconsciously always talked about food and her weight, she started throwing a tantrum when something on the dinner table had a few calories too much.

And Nabi knew that Jinah was currently struggling with the side effects of anorexia nervosa.

Jinah was weak, felt cold and saw stars. Exactly like she had felt back in the day.

But what Nabi didn't know, was that Jinah simply did a symptom swatch. Ever since that day of the burger incident, she had immediately vomited everything she had eaten. To her parents it looked liked Jinah was getting back to become her old self, when in reality a way darker door had opened.

Jinah had started to purge.

Even if she swallowed half a liter of water, she would use self-induced vomiting to get rid of it. Even though water had zero calories, she still didn't want it in her body,

"Love" Nabi spoke and waited for Jinah to turn around. "Eat your soup, it'll help." Without a word, Jinah sat up and started eating the soup. She didn't feel guilty for doing so, as she was going to throw it up anyways.

Nabi smiled. It was nice seeing Jinah eat again. Maybe she was getting over this thing she has going on. At least that was Nabi was thinking—hoping.

"When are you going back to work?", her mother asked and Jinah looked up. "Why? D'you want me out of this house?" Jinah smiled weakly and Nabi chuckled. "Oh my" she said and held her hand in front of her mouth. "That's not what I meant" she said and gently patted Jinah's plum colored hair.

"I don't know, Mum" Jinah suddenly said. She emptied the soup bowl and sighed. "What's up, love?" Nabi looked at Jinah—worry in her eyes. "Dad told you about this co-worker of me, right?"

"Jake?" Nabi asked and Jinah nodded. She bit her bottom lip. "I think I was a bit rude to him" Jinah looked at her hands. "I'm not usually like this" Jinah said. Her pout was prominent and Nabi gulped. "What happened, Jinah?"

"We went out to have dinner together" she closed her eyes for a second, "and then we got into an argument and he got really agitated and then I said I don't want to be his friend when in reality I want to be his friend." She sighed. "Mum, I don't know what to do." Jinah looked at Nabi and her mother smiled weakly.

"You need to apologize, Jinah. You know it."

— ❄︎ —

𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐤 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠!

𝐝𝐨𝐧'𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐠𝐞𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞.

𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐤 𝐲𝐨𝐮.

—𝕤𝕟𝕠𝕨𝕗𝕝𝕒𝕜𝕖𝕤𝕠𝕟𝕞𝕪𝕝𝕒𝕡𝕥𝕠𝕡